Just over two weeks ago, on June 2, The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) held its first Jamaican roadshow as a follow-up to Jamaica’s accession in July 2025 to Afreximbank’s Partnership Agreement.

The roadshow, held at the AC Hotel Kingston under the theme ‘Empowering Jamaica’s Growth: Catalysing Trade, Investment and Industrialisation through Tailored Afreximbank Solutions’ brought together government officials, business leaders, and financial institutions with the goal of expanding trade, investment, and industrialisation opportunities between the Caribbean and Africa.

Afrexim was created in 1993, under the auspices of the much older African Development Bank, as Africa’s response to the global debt crisis of the 1980s, and many have argued it has done much better than its original parent. It was created both by an “establishment” agreement signed by all its member countries (under United Nations Article 102, giving it international status), and an attached “charter” governing the bank’s operations.

The bank is headquartered in Cairo, Egypt (its largest shareholder), with six regional offices in the Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Abuja (Nigeria), Harare (Zimbabwe), Kampala (Uganda), Yaounde (Cameroon), and now Bridgetown (Barbados).

Afrexim has an innovative four-class shareholding structure, with ownership ranging from class A shareholders (African governments, the African Development Bank, African central banks); class B shares (a diverse group of local private investors); class C shares (global financial institutions, such as The Export-Import Bank of China and the UK’s Standard Chartered commercial bank); and class D shares (global depositary receipts available to everyone). Impressively, perhaps as a consequence of this diversified shareholding, Afreximbank is nevertheless rated investment grade by international rating agencies or well above that of its original African sponsor governments.

Its main objective is to bridge Africa’s financing gap and diversify Africa’s trade, both internally and externally, including with the rest of the Global South. As part of this mandate, two years ago, as noted in my Jamaica Observer article ‘Afreximbank comes to Kingston’, former bank President Benedict Oramah came to Jamaica to meet with the Government about signing an agreement as part of his vision that the Caribbean Diaspora represented Africa’s sixth region.

Finance Minister Fayval Williams had the honour of finalising Jamaica’s participation last year, thereby unlocking the increase in the bank’s regional limit to US$5 billion from US$3 billion for all of the now 13 Caribbean member countries (through the partnership treaty), including apparently an up-to-US$1.5 billion allocation for Jamaica.

It was, therefore, highly appropriate that she was keynote speaker at the event, promoting the strengthening of the partnership between Afreximbank and Jamaica. Williams, remarking on Jamaica’s recent Moody’s upgrade — by which Afrexim is rated Baa2 with a stable outlook — invited the bank to be rated by our own regional credit rating agency Caribbean Information and Credit Rating Services (CariCRIS), in a similar fashion to the way it is already rated by other regional/country rating agencies: South African rating agency GCR (A, stable), Chinese rating agency CCXI (AAA), and Japanese rating agency JCR (A-).

She encouraged increased engagement to unlock greater trade and investment opportunities between Jamaica and Africa, highlighted the opportunity to finance the Government’s newly passed National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) Act, and thanked Afrexim for its US$600,000 grant for Hurricane Melissa relief.

In his presentation, Eric Monchu Intong, Afreximbank’s group managing director for client relations and regional operations, noted that Afrexim had already disbursed over US$500 million in the region, with a further US$700 million committed, including what is likely to be the largest-ever investment in Suriname history in its oil sector.

He added that Afreximbank offers a wide range of innovative financial products and services in four main segments: credit, risk-bearing, advisory, and payments under three main strategic pillars: intra-African trade and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) implementation; industrialisation and export development; and leadership in global trade finance banking in Africa designed to expand, deepen capacity, and improve access.

The numerous products and solutions include trade finance facilities, project finance, export development programmes, advisory services, sophisticated treasury management, and many other products designed to support African businesses and trade activities that could all be easily extended to the Caribbean.

Keith Collister